This page contains technical information to help you get familiar with Azure IoT using the Azure IoT Starter Kit - Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 (Arduino-compatible). You will find two tutorials that will walk you through different scenarios: the first tutorial will show you how to connect your Azure IoT Starter kit to our Remote Monitoring preconfigured solution from Azure IoT Suite. In the second tutorial, you will leverage Azure IoT services to create your own IoT architecture.

You can choose to start with whichever tutorial you want to. If you've never worked with Azure IoT services before, we encourage you to start with the Remote Monitoring solution tutorial, because all of the Azure services will be provisioned for you in a built-in preconfigured solution. Then you can explore how each of the services work by going through the second tutorial.

We hope you enjoy the process. Please provide feedback if there's anything that we can improve.

This tutorial describes the process of taking your Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 kit, and using it to develop a temperature, humidity and pressure reader that can communicate with the cloud using the Microsoft Azure IoT SDK.

1.1 Tutorial Overview

In this tutorial, you'll be doing the following: - Setting up your environment on Azure using the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite Remote Monitoring preconfigured solution, getting a large portion of the set-up that would be required done in one step. - Setting your device and sensors up so that it can communicate with both your computer, and Azure IoT. - Updating the device code sample to include our connection data and send it to Azure IoT to be viewed remotely.

1.2 Before Starting

1.2.1 Required Software

Arduino IDE, version 1.6.8 (or newer) from www.arduino.cc (Earlier versions will not work with the AzureIoT library)

1.2.2 Required Hardware

Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 kit

Huzzah ESP8266 board

DHT22 Sensor

Breadboard

M/M jumper wires

10k Ohm Resistor (brown, black, orange)

A microB USB cable

A desktop or laptop computer which can run Arduino IDE 1.6.8 or newer

1.3 Connect your device to the Temperature sensor

Using this image as a reference, connect your Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 kit to the DHT22 Temperature sensor using the breadboard:

Note: Column on the left corresponds to sensor and on the Right to board. On the image, the board is place between 10 and 30, with the RST pin connected to row 30, and sensor between 1 and 9, with the VDD pin connected to the row 1.

Enter your desired device ID. In this case we’ll use “Huzzah_w_DHT22”, and then click Check ID

If Device ID is available, go ahead and click Create

IMPORTANT NOTE: Write down your device ID, Device Key, and IoT Hub Hostname to enter into the code you’ll run on your device later

Make sure your device displays in the devices section. The device status is Pending until the device establishes a connection to the remote monitoring solution.

1.5 Configure the Arduino IDE

In this step, we will be using the Arduino IDE. If you have not downloaded the IDE, please download it from the Arduino website.

1.5.1 Add the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 to the Arduino IDE

You will need to install the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 board extension for the Arduino IDE. In our steps below, we will be following the same instructions as in this link, which you can also use for troubleshooting. After going through the following steps, you should have a working sample with a blinking light on your board.

Open the Arduino IDE and go to File -> Preferences

Go to the field titled "Additional Boards Manager URLs:" and type http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json

Click on Tools -> Board -> Boards Manager

Search for esp8266, left click on the result titled esp8266 by ESP8266 Community and click on install

1.5.2 Configuration settings

Set the CPU frequency to 80MHz by clicking on Tools -> CPU Frequency -> 80MHz

Set the upload speed to 115200 by clicking on Tools -> Upload Speed -> 115200

Set the COM port by clicking on Tools -> Port -> COMx. If you see multiple COM ports, then you will have to experiment, in order to find the one that corresponds to your device. One way to do that is to disconnect your device, check the list of COM ports, reconnect the device and then find which port was not there before.

In order to verify that you've set the correct COM port, you can click on Tools -> Get Board Info. If you see the message "Native serial port, can't obtain port info", then you have not selected the correct port. You can change the COM port using the step above and retry this step, until you see a message similar to:

If you run into any connection issues, unplug the board, hold the reset button, and while still holding it, plug the board back in. This will flash to board to try again.

1.5.3 Install Library Dependencies

For this project, we'll also need the following libraries:

Adafruit DHT Unified

DHT Sensor Library

AzureIoTHub

AzureIoTUtility

AzureIoTProtocol_MQTT

Adafruit Unified Sensor

To install these libraries, click on the Sketch -> Include Library -> Manage Libraries.

Search for each of these libraries using the box in the upper-right to filter your search, click on the found library, and click the "Install" button.

If you have any problems while installing the libraries, you can find more instructions here.

Note: Starting on version 1.0.17, AzureIoTHub required the AzureIoTUtility and one of the available protocols. These samples use the AzureIoTProtocol_MQTT, but it is prepared to work with AzureIoTProtocol_HTTP too.

1.6 Modify the Remote Monitoring sample

Unzip the example code, go to the remote_monitoring directory and double-click the file remote_monitoring.ino to open the project in the Arduino IDE.

In the project, edit the iot_configs.h, look for the following lines of code:

Replace the placeholders with your WiFi name (SSID) and the WiFi password.

Find the Device id, Iot Hub Hostname and Device Key that you wrote down, when you saw the following screen after adding your custom device into the Azure IoT suite:

If you cannot find this data, then you can go to your Remote Monitoring Solution in Azure IoT Suite, click on Devices and then select your device. Check the device properties section at the right part of the page for the DEVICEID, HOSTNAME and Authentication Keys (bottom right of the page). Click on "View Authentication keys" and copy "KEY 1" as your deviceKey.

Look for the following line of code and replace the placeholders connection information (also remove the "<" and ">" when replacing the information):

While the code is being downloaded, there should be a blue blinking LED on your Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266.

After the deployment is done and you see 100% in the output console, then go to Tools -> Serial Monitor in the Arduino IDE to watch the live data being sent. After 15 seconds you should see a measurements update.

Note: When first starting you will likely see a “Fetching NTP epoch time failed” error – This is normal, and it trying to sync with Azure. This can take even up to 30 seconds to find a NTP server to sync with. One it is synced, it should start transmitting from there.

1.8 View the Sensor Data from the Remote Monitoring Portal

Once you have the sample running, visit your dashboard by visiting azureiotsuite.com and clicking “Launch” on your solution

Make sure the “Device to View” in the upper right is set to your device

If the demo is running, you should see the graph change as your data updates in real time!

1.9 Stop using the Azure IoT Suite

Warning: The Remote Monitoring solution provisions a set of Azure IoT Services in your Azure account. It is meant to reflect a real enterprise architecture and thus its Azure consumption is quite heavy.

To avoid unnecessary Azure consumption, you can delete, stop or downsize your Azure IoT Suite. We recommend you delete the preconfigured solution in azureiotsuite.com once you are done with your work (since it is easy to recreate).

If you want to read additional information about the Azure IoT Suite, you can go the following websites: - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/iot-suite-remote-monitoring-sample-walkthrough/ - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/iot-suite-connecting-devices/

1.9.1 Delete the Azure IoT Suite

Go to https://www.azureiotsuite.com, click on your existing solution (not on the "Launch" button) and then click the red button Delete Solution in the right pane

1.9.2 Stop the Azure IoT Suite

In the Microsoft Azure Portal - Click on "All Resources" - For each Stream Analytics and Web App resource: - Click on the resource and click the "Stop" button in the new blade that appears - For each IoT Hub resource: - Click on the resource and click the "Devices" button in the new blade that appears - Click on each device in the list and click the "Disable" button that appears in the new blade at the bottom

1.9.3 Downsize the Azure IoT Suite

Alternatively, if you want to keep it up and running you can do two things to reduce consumption:

1) Visit this guide to run the solution in demo mode and reduce the Azure consumption.

2) Disable the simulated devices created with the solution (Go to Devices>>Select the device>> on the device details menu on the right, clich on Disable Device. Repeat with all the simulated devices).

1.10 Next steps

Using Microsoft Azure IoT Services to Identify Temperature Anomalies

This tutorial describes the process of taking your Microsoft Azure IoT Starter Kit for the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266, and using it to develop a temperature and humidity reader that can communicate with the cloud using the Microsoft Azure IoT SDK.

2.1 Tutorial Overview

This tutorial has the following steps: - Provision an IoT Hub instance on Microsoft Azure and adding your device. - Prepare the device, get connected to the device, and set it up so that it can read sensor data. - Configure your Microsoft Azure IoT services by adding Event Hub, Storage Account, and Stream Analytics resources. - Prepare your local web solution for monitoring and sending commands to your device. - Update the sample code to respond to commands and include the data from our sensors, sending it to Microsoft Azure to be viewed remotely.

Here is a breakdown of the data flow: - The application running on the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 will get temperature data from the temperature sensor and it will send them to the IoT Hub - A Stream Analytics job will read the data from IoT Hub and write them to an Azure Storage Table. Also, if an anomaly is detected, then this job will write data to an Event Hub - The Node.js application that is running on your computers will read the data from the Azure Storage Table and the Event Hub and will present them to the user

The end result will be a functional command center where you can view the history of your device's sensor data, a history of alerts, and send commands back to the device.

2.3 Connect the Sensor Module to your Device

Using this image as a reference, connect your DHT22 and Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 to the breadboard

Note: Column on the left corresponds to sensor and on the Right to board. On the image, the board is place between 10 and 30 and sensor between 1 and 9. Additionally, when counting the - pins, start from the right and count in, as these do not align with the numbers indicated on the board.

Note: The resistor can change a little from one kit to another, e.g. it can be 330 Ohm (orange, orange, brown) or 560 Ohm (green, blue, brown). Both will work with success.

In the menu, click New, then click Internet of Things, and then click Stream Analytics Job

Enter a name for the job (We chose “HuzzahStorageJob”), a preferred region, then choose your subscription. At this stage you are also offered to create a new or to use an existing resource group. Choose the resource group you created earlier.

Once the job is created, open your Job’s blade or click on the pinned tile, and find the section titled “Job Topology” and click the Inputs tile. In the Inputs blade, click on Add

Enter the following settings:

Input Alias = TempSensors

Source Type = Data Stream

Source = IoT Hub

IoT Hub = Huzzah2Suite (use the name for the IoT Hub you create before)

Back to the Stream Analytics Job blade, click on the Query tile (next to the Inputs tile). In the Query settings blade, type in the below query and click Save:

SELECT
DeviceId,
EventTime,
MTemperature as TemperatureReading
INTO
TemperatureTableStorage
from TempSensors
WHERE
DeviceId is not null
and EventTime is not null
SELECT
DeviceId,
EventTime,
MTemperature as TemperatureReading
INTO
TemperatureAlertToEventHub
FROM
TempSensors
WHERE MTemperature>25

Note: You can change the 25 to 0 when you're ready to generate alerts to look at. This number represents the temperature in degrees celsius to check for when creating alerts. 25 degrees celsius is 77 degrees fahrenheit.

Back to the Stream Analytics Job blade, click on the Outputs tile and in the Outputs blade, click on Add

Enter the following settings then click on Create:

Output Alias = TemperatureTableStorage

Sink = Table Storage

Subscription = Provide table settings storage manually

Storage account = huzzahstorage (The storage account you created earlier)

Storage account key = (The primary key for the storage account made earlier, can be found in Settings -> Keys -> Primary Access Key)

Next, we will update your device so that it can interact with all the things you just created.

2.9 Add the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 to the Arduino IDE

You will need to install the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 board extension for the Arduino IDE:

Follow the instructions here. There you will see how to add a URL pointing to Adafruit's repository of board extensions, how to make the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 board selectable under the Tools menu, and how to get the Blink sketch to run.

As we explained on the item 1.5, boards with microB connector don't have the GPIO0 button. So, in the 'Blink Test', ignore the steps to put the board in the bootload mode, and go directly to the step to upload the sketch via the IDE.

After going through this, you should have a working sample with a blinking light on your board.

If you run into any connection issues, unplug the board, hold the reset button, and while still holding it, plug the board back in. This will flash to board to try again.

2.10 Install Library Dependencies

For this project, we'll also need the the following libraries:

DHT Sensor Library

Adafruit DHT Unified

AzureIoTHub

AzureIoTUtility

AzureIoTProtocol_MQTT

To install them, click on the Sketch -> Include Library -> Manage Libraries. Search for each library using the box in the upper-right to filter your search, click on the found library, and click the "Install" button.

The Adafruit Unified Sensor library is also needed. This can be downloaded here. Instructions for manually installing a library can be found here.

2.11 Modify the Command Center sample

Unzip the example code, and double-click the file command_center.ino to open the project in the Arduino IDE.

You will be prompted to creat a folder. Do this, and move the other files in the folder into the newly created child folder

Replace the placeholders with your Device ID and connection string you created at the beginning of this tutorial.

Save with Control-s

2.12 Build Your Command Center Sample

Build and upload the code using Sketch -> Upload.

Note: As of 1.6.8, the Arduino IDE doesn't properly show "Upload Completed", even when it succeeds.

There should now be a blue blinking LED on your Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266. After the deployment is done and you see 100% in the output console, then go to Tools -> Serial Monitor in the Arduino IDE to watch the live data being sent. After 15 seconds you should see a measurements update.

Data is now being sent off at regular intervals to Microsoft Azure. When it detects something out of range, you will see the LED you’ve set up turn from green to red!

You can click the green button (labeled "Turn on") and the red button (labeled "Turn off") in the application to toggle the green and red LEDs in your kit.

Head back to your Node application and you will have a fully functional command center, complete with a history of sensor data, alerts that display when the temperature got outside a certain range, and commands that you can send to your device remotely.

Note: Make sure to stop your Command Center jobs once you have when you finish to avoid unnecessary Azure consumption! (See: Troubleshooting)

Troubleshooting

Stopping Provisioned Services

Click on the resource and click the "Stop" button in the new blade that appears

For each IoT Hub resource:

Click on the resource and click the "Devices" button in the new blade that appears

Click on each device in the list and click the "Disable" button that appears in the new blade at the bottom

Data is not showing up in the Node.js application

In this section we will explain how to see the data flowing from the Arduino application to the Node.js application: - Arduino application: In the Arduino IDE go to Tools -> Serial Monitor - IoT Hub: Use Device Explorer - Azure Storage Table: Use Azure Storage Explorer